


This is Hell

by Morgana



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:17:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike thinks about his new existence at Wolfram & Hart</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Hell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightvictorious](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nightvictorious).



> Companion piece to [Without Really Seeing](http://community.livejournal.com/spangel_/470391.html#cutid1)

It took me a while, but I figured it out. I was right when I was first brought back: this is hell. Maybe not for you and your pet humans, but it's my hell. They were wrong, you know, all those preachers that used to roar down from the pulpit, claiming that hell was fire and brimstone. It's being like this, cold and alone, seeing everyone and knowing that no one sees you. Oh, Fred tries, darling girl that she is, but she'll always just see William. Watcher can't get past the whole 'William the Bloody, vampire of history' bit and Charlie's good for a pint but he'd stake me in a heartbeat if he thought it was warranted. So that just leaves you. You, who won't ever really look at me beyond the briefest glance. Do you think I don't know what you're doing?

Unlike you, I'm not afraid to look, to see you for who and what you really are. And yes, you're bloody gorgeous. There, I said it. Happy now? It's not like you don't already know that, although it's a different kind of gorgeous than you used to be. You were a lion, Liam, and now you're a housecat. Did getting that beautiful long hair cut make you feel like less of a vampire? Maybe it worked, for those that weren't around, but I remember. I know what it was like to drown in the warmth of hot chocolate eyes and watch firelight dance on whiskey-brown hair, worn loose and long like a mantle over your shoulders. I can still see you behind my eyes, stretched out naked on crisp white sheets, golden-brown and gleaming with the red flecks of my blood.

Do you remember that, Angel? Remember the way my skin parted like paper beneath the lash of the whip? You've always liked hurting me, said I was never prettier than when I bled, and that, at least, hasn't changed. All it ever took was one smart remark, the right look, and I was dragged off for my punishment. But for all the beatings Angelus handed down, all the times I was dragged off to his bed will-you-nil-you, he was more generous than you, you magnificent bastard. You used to give pleasure with the pain, and every time I struck back, there was a gleam in your eyes that said you were proud of me. Now there's just that flat deadness, and your fists are all I ever feel. But I'll take it, just to feel the contact.

Maybe I've been spoiled, living with the humans for the last few years. Especially the Scoobie lot - never saw such as them for touching each other. The witches mostly, always hugging, they were, but the boy and Buffy and the Bit, too. Dawn used to slip her little hand in mine during that summer, lean her head on my shoulder when we talked, and last year, Buffy did, too. Kept me grounded, let me know I was there when I felt her brush her hand over mine or curl up against me. Never had much of that before, someone just touching me to touch me because they wanted to - not since I was turned, anyway. Guess I got too used to it, cause there's none of it here.

It's quieter here, too. None of the chatter or shrieking or music that was always a part of them. There was always something going on, movement and bustle and _life_ and it makes the cold and quiet here all the worse. I miss Buffy's quips and Red's babble and Dawn's laughter. Haven't heard you laugh since the last time you lost your soul - do you even remember how? Or is it not something the very dignified CEO of an evil law firm does these days?

You used to laugh. Whether it was with me or at me, you never seemed to care much which. Our house was full of sound too, wasn't it, Angel? Dru chattered to her dolls, Darla scolded the servants and me, you swore in 5 languages, and we all sang. Well, most of us did, anyway. You never could carry a tune, even though you loved to listen to us. Didn't matter if it was singing, moaning or screaming, you preferred the family voices to all else, and we snapped to attention when you called our names, me especially. I loved hearing you talk, listening to how the words rolled on your tongue. I've been meaning to ask - what happened to your accent? Did it get lost at the same time that you cut your hair and changed your name? Or is it still there, buried under the weight of the guilt, waiting for the second that I cross the line and you bark at me to shush in the dark tones of the creature I know you truly are?

Awwww, did those words hit the mark? It really shouldn't surprise you; you were the one who taught me how, after all. You took my poet's tools and showed me how to make weapons of them, as well as where to aim them. Of course, you never did seem to like it when I put your own lessons to use against you. But you're too good and pure now to really go after me, aren't you? Wouldn't be fitting for the high and mighty Angel to be seen chasing his childe around the office. I mean, what would the pet humans think? They might actually get the idea that you're a vampire!

And that's what this is all about, really. You trying to pretend you're different, special, not like me. But I know you, Angelus. I've spent too many nights wrapped in sheets that smelled of blood and bay rum and spunk to think otherwise. And after a hundred, or a thousand years, I'd still know that scent, the scent of home that lives just under your skin. It's the one thing I even halfway recognize here, where everything is either glaringly bright or dark enough to drown in, but I'll never be allowed to get close enough to really savor it, will I? You won't let me cover myself in it the way I used to, so I'm left with the memory of sandalwood and roses, heather and jasmine and blood, and the days when we were family.

We were, weren't we? No matter what else happened, when it came down to it, you promised to protect me. It was in the blood you gave me to seal the bond when Drusilla was more interested in her tea parties than teaching me to hunt. I think that was when I first loved you; you poured down my throat, milk and honey, and the memory of it still makes me hard. I craved it then, when I barely knew what it was to be truly alive, and God help me, I crave it now. I'd call it an addiction, but this is beyond a junkie reaching for the needle or a drunk pouring his third drink of the morning. It's a bone-deep need, as much a part of me as killing or the poncy poetry that still pops up every so often. And it's dying, as slowly and surely as the rest of me in this place.

There's nothing here, no colors or fabrics, no roaring fires or sweet-smelling women, just lukewarm blood and cold black marble everywhere you look. How can you live in this vacuum you've created? Or is that it, that you've decided you don't deserve to live, merely exist, and this was as good as any other? Come on, Angel! Laugh at me, taunt me, growl at me, beat me down, fuck me, anything! Don't just look right through me like that, because every time you do, I know that I'm right... and that this really is hell.


End file.
